Writer's Block
by sorakazuma
Summary: Levy's having trouble getting inspiration for her new story and finds herself drawn to the mysterious Iron Dragon Slayer for a bit of creativity.


Levy McGarden sighed, crumpling up the piece of paper she had been working on tightly in her fist. This had to be the simple most frustrating thing she had done in a while and she didn't know how to fix the problem…which caused to aggravate her even more.

She and Lucy had decided in a fangirl moment of kindred friendship that they would work on writing a story together. The idea of working on a collaboration with one of her closest friends had excited her down to the very core and she was eager to start, except that every character she designed in her head was all wrong! They were all aloof, or angsty, with a quick temper or a fiery battle spirit… in all the right ways they were just like HIM. Even the original hero she had thrown ideas around with in her head had been tall, dark and handsome. She was on her sixth character design now and this one was simply no better; she found she was merely taking her favorite traits from the man that she admired the most and were working them into her story. There was a bit of a guilty pleasure in this, she knew, that designing him after her crush and her heroine after her, it would be almost as good as if they were really together! Almost.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes breathing in deep. Even like this, he was all she could see, and he scarcely knew she existed. His favorite words to her were "shorty" and "shrimp", mostly because she was tiny for her age of seventeen, not that it helped her complex any. He was rough around the edges to begin with and there were times he was abrasive and frightening as all hell, but there were times when he was nice too. These seemed to be the moments when his heroic nature seemed to shine through and Levy couldn't help but stare at him in awe.

She let out another sigh. She adored him, and he would never have any idea of how she felt.

The sound of thunder roared overhead, jerking her attention to the ceiling. She wondered if she had been so into her writing that her story that she hadn't heard the storm before. But a couple other pairs of eyes averted upwards let her know that this was probably the first of what was to come.

"Guess I'll take that as a break." She smiled at the pile of waded paper on the table and got up. Something to drink and an afternoon snack sounded like a great idea at the moment.

Walking closer to the entrance, her hazel eyes fell on the small form of the Exceed cowering by the front door. The small black cat had pulled his rounded ears down on his head and was watching the downpour outside with soft amber brown hues. He looked so pathetic sitting there that Levy couldn't help herself. "Lily," She called softly to him. "Why are you sitting over here?"

The Exceed jumped at the sound of the voice, his face turning to look up at her. "O-Oh…. Hi Levy…" He stammered out, trying to sound as if he weren't trembling in his spot. It was no secret in the guild that he hated lightning, but he always tried to put on a brave front anyway. "I was waiting for Gajeel to come back."

Levy glanced back into the guild lobby, looking around for the man in question, but he wasn't in view. "He isn't back yet? Where did he go?"

"I don't know…he said he had a few errands to run." Lily frowned. "I always worry about him when it comes to thunderstorms. With the amount of iron he eats, he runs the risk of being struck by lightning more than the average person."

Levy's eyes widened and then she swallowed. It was probable that Lily was right… Gajeel was the steel dragon slayer after all, and he had a tendency to inhale metal like most people did ramen. The sky was black overhead and the wind was sweeping leaves down the walk. If the Fairy Tail guild was still in the heart of Magnolia, this wouldn't have been a problem…no doubt he would have just stayed in a shop or a restaurant until the storm was over. But here, in x791, Fairy Tail's headquarters had moved to the outskirts of the city lines and walking into town took over an hour. It was quiet and peaceful, but in this mess…

"I'll go look for him." She said with a smile as another crack of lightning lit up the entrance. Lily scampered behind her legs, clinging to her. "You go inside where you can't see the lightning and wait for us to get back."

"Y-You sure? I don't blame you for not going out there…." He whimpered out, but she picked him up and placed him over the side of railing on one of the nearby tables.

"I'll be fine. Much better prepared than Gajeel I'm sure." She beamed at him and then stepped up to the doorway. Moving her hands fluently she conjured up the picture in her mind. "CLOAK!" She said and instantly the cloth formed around her small frame, made up of chains of the word 'cloak' over and over again. The shimmering lettered fabric even had a hood which she pulled overhead. "I'll be back." She told Pantherlily, who was still watching her from where she had placed him.

Outside was a torrent of wind and water… the spring afternoon was a little cold and the breeze seeped into the folds of the cloak as Levy ran down the path, glancing around for any sign of the dragon slayer. One advantage to being so small was that she was undeniably agile and with a 'WINGS' spell to her shoes she could max her running speed without tiring. She smiled, knowing that Jet would probably be proud of her.

She covered about half the trek in fifteen minutes, but by that point water was dripping in her magical armor and she was beginning to grow damp. The storm was wild overhead and several times she had had to push again the torrents but as she came around a turn in the road, she caught the glint of silver over in the distance, flashing as brightly as the storm. Relief swept through her. "GAJEEL!"

He looked up at the call of his name, ruby red eyes staring at her in surprise. "Levy." He was sitting under the boughs of a flowering tree, but it was still not stopping him from getting totally wet. He rang out his long shaggy hair as she approached. "What the hell are you doing?"

Despite his words there was no malice in his tone and she had long since gotten used to his style of speak. She stopped in front of him, her spells dissipating around her so that she could push back wet locks of her wavy blue hair. "Lily was worried about you…so I told him I would come find you." She explained, taking him in. He was mostly soaked through from the storm, his black clothing sticking to his muscular forms in places she wished she hadn't noticed. Turning her face away before he caught her blush, she feigned annoyance. "Least you could say is thank you for coming to check up on you."

"I wasn't lost!" He snapped at her, his eyes narrowing. "Damn cat has to stop with his rampant fear of lightning. Now he's got you all paranoid. I suppose he went off on that stupid tangent about how I'm gonna drop dead from lightning or something?"

Levy blinked and looked back at him rant, before busting out laughing. "That's EXACTLY what happened." She admitted, between giggles.

"Tch." Gajeel leaned back against the tree, rolling his ruby eyes skyward. "I think if I was gonna die by lightning, I would have been toast the minute I fought Laxus. Hell if I'm going out that way."

She smiled at him, feeling her stomach untwist a little bit. "You make a good point." She hesitated a long moment, feeling heat creep in her face with the question she was about to ask. "Do you mind if I sit here with you until the storm stops?"

His gaze met hers for the smallest of seconds and he shrugged. "Do what you want, Shorty."

She glared at him for her nickname but went and sat down next to him anyway. The grass was damp, as was the tree, but she hardly cared. She was getting to spend some time with him away from the crazy antics of the guild and away from prying eyes….that almost never happened. They had nothing in common either to talk about, except maybe for a loyalty to the guild and a love of music…he was a battle-hardened mage, and Levy's magic was support at best….they hardly understood the other's worlds, but she simply didn't care. She still loved him.

The article falling into her lap pulled her out of her daydreams and she jerked her gaze over to him. He had dumped a shopping bag on her and turned away so that she could barely see his face. "W-What's this?" She questioned.

"Just open it." He snapped, but his tone was surprisingly soft. "I got it for you."

That statement startled her almost as much as the dumped object had, but she did as she was told. Inside the bag was a gift box from Bethesda's, one of the most common names in household magical commodities. Lifting the lid, her green-brown eyes widened at the expensive looking tome underneath, recognizing it. "Is this?!" She pulled the book out, her fingers caressing over the smooth leather bindings before opening it. The pages within were blank and shimmered with a faint gold hue. She fanned them, watching them glitter. "It's beautiful." She breathed, and watched ecstatically as the pages lit up with a faint pink glow before returning to their normal color. "This is an Emotome…" She had always wanted one, if for nothing else, then to watch the letters that she wrote in change color depending on her mood. "I can't accept this- it's waaaay to expensive!"

He had been watching her reactions over his shoulder but as she turned that back on him he frowned. "I don't care. You're stuck with it." He hissed, raking back his raven hair. "It's more like an apology… I'm sorry that I fucked up at Tenroujima."

She stared at him in shock. He was somehow beating himself up over that? "That was HARDLY your fault!" She exclaimed. "You couldn't have expected Grimoire Heart to show up any more then you could have expected to win."

His eyes narrowed. "I told you I would make you S-Class… and it was more a test for myself to see if I could overcome any challenge, and I failed miserably. I failed the both of us. And I came to realize…" His ruby eyes danced and he looked more annoyed than usual. "That I'm always doing wrong by you. Whether it was Phantom Lord, or the Magnolia festival, or the S-Class. So… you don't have to like me or whatever…but I figured I would at least try and make amends."

"Gajeel." She could feel her eyes watering as she stared at him, feel his words his home. He had distanced himself because he was ashamed and he believed she wanted nothing to do with him. Leaning over, she let her small hand wrap around the back of his much bigger one, squeezing tight. "I could never hate you." She said as evenly-toned as she could while swallowing back tears. "Even if we started out wrong…you're a part of Fairy Tail now. Your failures are our failures…and I've never held anything against you. Ever since you joined our guild, you've always protected me, and I might not have made it this far without you. So please…" Her lower lip quivered and she bit at it to regain hold of herself. "Please don't feel that way, about me…"

"I didn't mean to make you cry!" Gajeel blinked at her, not sure how to handle that. "Damnit don't cry, now I feel worse!"

"S-Sorry!" She hiccupped, stopping her sniffling. "I just… I really like you and I…" The words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying and she blushed horribly. "I-I just don't want you to think otherwise!"

The dragon slayer cocked a half-smile as he watched her flush. "You're not so bad yourself, Shorty." He said and he watched those hazel eyes widened. Oh she could be so cute and it made him almost predatory sometimes, but that would be a different adventure for a different day.

Levy took that to heart. She was on cloud nine, not that he would ever know that. "O-Okay…" she stammered out, looking down at her gift. "I want to get stronger…." She started when she felt her need to cry subside in the wake of utter excitement and happiness. That was one hurdle down in their relationship. "So can I… can we go out sometime…when you're not busy and Jet and Droy aren't dragging me on a mission?" His statement was making her bold but she hardly cared at the moment.

"Mmph… if you want." He lifted his head, gaze cast up at the sky. "Looks like the storm's clearing up." He glanced over at her. "If you've got some time this afternoon we can go out today."

She looked up at him, utter joy on her face. "Sure!"

That night when she got home, she was utterly exhausted from having spent hours of physical and mental training with the man she adored, but it had been well worth it. Her body was trained, but her mind was still well at work and she was up late in the evening working on her characters for the story until she had a pristine complete biography written out.

She handed it to Lucy first thing the next morning.

"You're finished!" Lucy beamed as she looked over the first page excitedly. "This is going to be awesome! I haven't even finished mi-" She stopped short as she read down the page, confusion taking over her features before she gave the girl standing there a knowing look. "Levy, you know he sounds an awful lot like-"

"Yep." Levy beamed, cutting her off before she got the name out of her mouth. They both knew who it was and she was sure to hear about it later. "I don't care. He's my hero."

END

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